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No And Me

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"All my life I've felt on the outside wherever I am, out of the picture, the conversation, at one remove, as though I was the only one able to hear the sounds or words that others can't and deaf to the words that they seem to hear. As if I'm outside the frame, on the other side of a huge, invisible window.

But yesterday when I was there with her, I'm certain that you could have drawn a circle around us, a circle I wasn't excluded from, which enclosed us, and for a few minutes, protected us from the world."

At thirteen-years-old, with an unusually high IQ and a knack for observing things about other people, Lou Bertignac is not only the youngest in her class at school; she is also the most unusual. Painfully shy, she has few friends, save for Lucas, whose company helps her get through each day. At home, Lou's life is also difficult: Her mother hasn't left the house in years and her father spends his days crying in the bathroom. Lou's world is dark and sad... That is, until she meets No.

No is a teenage girl that Lou befriends for the purpose of her school project on homelessness. Despite the different worlds that these two girls come from, a friendship is soon forged between them. Unable to bear the thought of No not having a home or a family to keep her safe, Lou persuades her reluctant parents into letting her new friend stay with the Bertignac family. No's addition to the household forces Lou and her parents to face the sadness that has been enveloping them for so long — but not without some disruptions along the way.

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Reviews

Rated 2 out of
5 by
Emily_Vernon from
Not worth the readThis book tried so hard to convey deep messages about helping those in need and never giving up on people, but the whole time I was reading I was waiting for something interesting to happen. The end left me with more questions than answers- not about life, but about the plot. I didn't find No and Me to be at all relevant and it was not even worth reading.

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No And Me

The following ISBNs are associated with this title:

ISBN - 10: 0385667566

ISBN - 13: 9780385667562

Read from the Book

‘Miss Bertignac, I don’t see your name on the list of presentations.’ Mr Marin is looking at me from a distance with one eyebrow raised, his hands on his desk. I’d reckoned without his long-range radar. I’d been hoping to get away with it, but I’m caught red-handed. Twenty-five pairs of eyes turn round, waiting for my answer. ‘Brains’ has been caught out. Axelle Vernoux and Léa Germain stifle laughter behind their hands, and a dozen bracelets jingle in delight on their wrists. If only I could disappear a hundred miles under the earth, right down to the lithosphere, that would be convenient. I loathe presentations. I loathe talking in front of the class. I feel like a huge crack has opened beneath my feet, but nothing’s moved, everything is stuck in slow motion, nothing’s falling in. I wish I could faint right here and now. Just be struck down. Drop dead. There I’d lie, spreadeagled in my Converse Allstars, and Mr Marin would take his chalk and write on the blackboard: ‘Here lies Lou Bertignac, top of the class, but silent and a loner’. ‘. . . I was going to put my name down.’ ‘Good. What’s your topic?’ ‘The homeless.’ ‘That’s rather general. Can you be a bit more specific?’ Lucas is smiling at me. His eyes are huge. I could drown in them, or disappear, or let the silence swallow up Mr Marin and the whole class. I could take my Eastpak and leave without a word, the way Lucas does. I could apologise and say that I haven’t a clue, I just said the first thing that came into my h

From the Publisher

"All my life I've felt on the outside wherever I am, out of the picture, the conversation, at one remove, as though I was the only one able to hear the sounds or words that others can't and deaf to the words that they seem to hear. As if I'm outside the frame, on the other side of a huge, invisible window.

But yesterday when I was there with her, I'm certain that you could have drawn a circle around us, a circle I wasn't excluded from, which enclosed us, and for a few minutes, protected us from the world."

At thirteen-years-old, with an unusually high IQ and a knack for observing things about other people, Lou Bertignac is not only the youngest in her class at school; she is also the most unusual. Painfully shy, she has few friends, save for Lucas, whose company helps her get through each day. At home, Lou's life is also difficult: Her mother hasn't left the house in years and her father spends his days crying in the bathroom. Lou's world is dark and sad... That is, until she meets No.

No is a teenage girl that Lou befriends for the purpose of her school project on homelessness. Despite the different worlds that these two girls come from, a friendship is soon forged between them. Unable to bear the thought of No not having a home or a family to keep her safe, Lou persuades her reluctant parents into letting her new friend stay with the Bertignac family. No's addition to the household forces Lou and her parents to face the sadness that has been enveloping them for so long — but not without some disruptions along the way.

From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

DELPHINE DE VIGAN is French and lives in Paris. No and Me was awarded the Prix des Libraires (The Booksellers' Prize) in 2008.

From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

"Well-structured, with moments of tenderness and truth about family and home, inadequate parents and neglected children, No and Me is honest (as revealing and insightful about Lou and home life as it is about No and homelessness) but also at least partially reassuring. Lou's 'large-scale experiment against fate' might not go quite according to plan, but de Vigan shows that things really can change, albeit not always in the ways we've anticipated, and not always in ways we can control." — The Independent (UK)